Informing Marketing Decisions

Know exactly what works (finally)

You want more people finding you on Google, and you have a list of things somebody said would help. None of it came with a way to check. Pick one thing people actually search for, and we will take apart the ten pages sitting above you and tell you which of that list matters here.

The Advice Was Not Written About You

It was written about everybody at once, which is a different thing

Write longer. Add headings. Answer questions.

All of it is true somewhere. Whether it is true for the thing your customers type into Google is a question nobody asked, and the article you read it in was not about your market.

You cannot tell which item to do first

A list of twenty improvements with no order is not a plan. Some of them your page already does. Some of them will not move anything. There is no way to tell which is which from the outside, so the list gets worked top to bottom until the quarter ends.

The pages beating you are right there

Ten of them, on the first page, for the exact thing you want to be found for. Whatever they have in common is the closest thing to an answer anyone can get, and nobody on your team has the week it takes to read all ten properly.

Every Measured Thing, Sorted Into Four Piles

For the thing you chose, not for search in general

Match It, Try It, Skip It, Test It Last

We measure the ten pages ranking above you on everything we can measure, and put each one in a pile. Every ranking page already does this, so match it and move on. They differ wildly here, so there is room to be better. Nothing about this tracks with rank, so leave it alone. Something might be here, but the evidence is thin, so test it if you run out of better ideas.

Sorted Per Search, Not Per Industry

The same factor lands in different piles for different searches. Something that every winner needs for one phrase buys nothing for another. That is why the piles are worked out fresh for each thing you look at instead of handed down as a rule.

Read It However Suits You

One control switches the whole report between plain language, the underlying statistics, and both side by side. Nobody on your team has to learn the vocabulary to use the findings, and nobody who wants the numbers is kept from them.

The Words They Rank For and You Do Not

Every phrase your competitors hold a top-ten spot for that your site does not, with how many people search it and how hard it looks. That list is a content plan you did not have to invent.

The Questions the Page Already Answers

The questions Google shows alongside these results, the related searches underneath them, and the topics the winning pages keep returning to. It is what your buyers are asking, in the words they ask it in.

What Comes Back

Nine sections. Here is what is in them

What the Winning Pages Look Like

  • How long they are, and how tightly they agree on it
  • How they are broken up with headings
  • How hard they are to read
  • Where the words people searched for actually appear
  • How your page sits against all of that

What They Cover

  • The topics that come up again and again across the ten
  • Which of those topics your page never mentions
  • Phrases your competitors rank for and you do not
  • The questions the results page puts in front of searchers

Who You Are Up Against

  • Every domain that showed up, not a list you had to guess at
  • How many of your phrases each one holds
  • Where each is strong, measured separately rather than blended into a score
  • What the results page shows besides ten blue links

What To Do About It

  • Every measured factor, in one of the four piles
  • An order to work in, not a pile of findings
  • The reasoning, so you can disagree with it
  • Something you can put in front of a manager without translating

The report is about one thing people search for, and it is worked out from the pages winning it on the day we looked. That is the whole scope, deliberately. An answer about your market in general would be the same generic advice you already have, dressed up.

What it will not do is promise you a position. We can show you what the pages beating you have in common and where yours differs. Turning that into you will rank would be a guess, and we would rather hand you the measurements than a confident voice.

How We Decide Something Is Real

Four questions, asked of every single factor, before anything gets called a finding

Does this track with rank at all?

The first question is whether a factor has any relationship with who is winning. Plenty of famous ones do not, for plenty of searches.

When the answer is no: it goes in the skip pile
The most valuable line in the report is often the one telling you not to bother.

Could it just be a coincidence?

Ten pages can agree by luck. We work out how likely that is before calling a pattern anything, and we tell you which way it came out.

When the evidence is thin: it goes in the test-it-last pile
Named as a maybe, rather than sold to you as a finding.

Does every winner already do it?

When all ten sit inside a very tight band on something, that is not an advantage anybody has. It is the price of entry.

When they all agree: it goes in the match-it pile
Nothing to be clever about. Get level and spend your time elsewhere.

And where does your page sit?

Your page is measured the same way theirs is, so the comparison is like for like rather than your numbers against a published average.

When you are already fine: it drops off your list
Being unusual on the good side is a difference, not a fault.

What You Do On Monday

The point of the report is the shortest possible list of things to change

The Things You Can Stop Doing

Every factor sorted into the skip pile is work your team was going to do and now does not have to. For most people this is the part that pays for the whole exercise.

Pages To Write, Not Just Pages To Fix

Where the winners keep covering something your site has never addressed, that is a page you are missing rather than a paragraph you can bolt on. It gets called out as one.

Something You Can Show Your Boss

Switch the report to plain language and it reads as sentences about your market. The person asking why this and not that gets an answer from the same screen you worked from.

The Same Question, Two Ways

What the advice tells you, and what the pages actually beating you tell you

What The Advice Says

"Longer content ranks better. Break it up with headings. Bring the reading level down. Post more often."

True somewhere. Unknown here.

What it cannot tell you:

  • Whether any of it applies to your search
  • Which of the four to do first
  • Which ones your page already handles
  • Which one is a dead end you will spend a month on

What The Ten Winners Say

Match it Every ranking page does this. Get level.
Try it They vary widely. Room to be better.
Skip it No relationship with rank. Buys nothing.
Test it last Something there, evidence thin.
Your page Measured the same way, factor by factor.

What changes:

The first question stops being what should we do and becomes which of these are we already fine on. That is usually most of them, and the list of real work turns out to be short.

Find Out What Is Actually Working

Start with your site drawn, free. The keyword analysis runs inside it.